Marguerite Martha Allan (August 5, 1894[1] – April 4, 1942) was the founder of the Montreal Repertory Theatre and co-founder of the Dominion Drama Festival.

At the annual Dominion Drama Festival the Martha Allan Trophy is awarded in her memory for the best visual performance.

[citation needed] Having trained as a nurse, Allan was injured in the same conflict while driving an ambulance that she had purchased in France at her own expense.

Edgar Allen Collard of the Montreal Gazette described Allan as, Immensely self-assured, forceful and resourceful, with all manner of charm yet determined to carry out her plans.

She was a woman capable of bringing together a group, with varying degrees of talent, compatibility and dedication, and welding them into an effective, hard-working whole.

Margaret Anglin, then Canada's best-known stage actress, who happened to be in town performing Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, also spoke in support of local theatre.

These significant sweeping changes to the cultural scene swiftly galvanized Montreal's elite into supporting Allan's initiative.

The MRT's opening night performances were packed to the rafters with old Montreal's social elite, all of whom Miss Allan knew intimately, many of them being close friends of, or related to her parents.

Unlike its predecessor, The Community Players, the MRT had established a traditional subscription series of plays, an experimental studio wing, a French section, a school for theatre training, an extensive library collection of theatre books and memorabilia, and an organization magazine - Cue - that kept subscribers up-to-date with all kinds of theatrical information.

The MRT determined to produce plays in English, French and German, to make it accessible to all Montrealers, not just in the audience, but on the stage too.

[8] In the 1930s, Montreal was in heavy recession and despite Allan's best attempts to rally local wealth and political support, the MRT had suffered from never having had a real headquarters.

Unable to purchase an existing theatre or construct a new one, in 1932, the MRT obtained a space in a building on Union Avenue, but more was needed.

The building that the MRT eventually acquired on Guy Street, had in the 1870s been the West-End School, and later served as a home for Protestant infants and as a dance academy.

[citation needed] In 1952, the Guy Street building blew up and all its contents were lost: the theatre, its equipment, the library, the museum, the costumes and the records.

The MRT continued as it had done before, renting halls, until it acquired another theatre and headquarters in the old building of the Navy League of Canada on Closse Street.

[citation needed] Allan worked closely with the Governor-General of Canada, Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough, in helping to establish the Dominion Drama Festival with Colonel Osborne of Ottawa.

Thomas Archer of the Montreal Gazette wrote, "Miss Allan could walk in at the last moment, so to speak, and put a hopeless situation into what it ought to be for the 'customers' on the opening night.

The MRT formed its own 'Tin Hat Revue' for the entertainment of the troops, and with a portable stage and equipment it declared itself ready to present its repertoire of songs, skits and dancing numbers anywhere, at any time.